


In My Head

by likehandlingroses



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, M/M, OCD thought processes, Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 22:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20628551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likehandlingroses/pseuds/likehandlingroses
Summary: At nine a.m., Oliver makes the decision to finally visit Percy after the war.At four p.m., he remembers that he made the same decision the day before.





	In My Head

At nine in the morning, Oliver decided over a cup of coffee to set off for the Burrow at ten. 

Ten and a half minutes later, he began to worry about whether he should write first. After all, the Weasleys were still grieving, and he hadn’t spoken to Percy since the Battle. And before that, there’d been years of silence between them. 

Oliver did everything he could not to think about that time, but today he couldn’t help it. Half dressed on his bed, watching the clock move without keeping time, he ran through the same scenes over and over again. 

Percy had been too busy and it had driven Oliver mad...then Oliver had been too busy, and that had driven Percy even madder...they’d pretended to mend things...Percy bought an apartment in London and stopped talking to his family...Oliver waited six months before telling Percy how he felt about every stupid word that had come out of Percy’s mouth for the past year.

_ Every stupid word. _ That’s what Oliver said, standing in that London apartment, still in his socks. He remembered how his heart pounded when he’d said it, how Percy’s face had crushed in on itself for just an instant before hardening. Oliver had known even then that he was Right But Not Right in saying it.

Perhaps once--just once--Oliver could think through what had happened without hating himself.

Then it was twelve past noon, and somehow that number spurred him off of his bed and back to getting ready.

If he tapped his foot quickly enough, he wouldn’t remember anything else. He might make it over to the Burrow for tea. 

But the sun illuminated the shadows cast by the pile of dishes in the sink, and Oliver scrambled to put them away. Slowly, by hand...one by one. He couldn’t do it the other way, anymore. 

Things weren’t meant to fly inside. They’d crash and break and scream and bleed. Leave shadows. Awful, crooked, painful shadows. And you had to clean them up, you had to put them away and set them all right again. The sharp shadows that tore your clothes and bit into your shoes. The wet shadows that made your hands smell of copper, all the way down to under your nails. The cold, heavy shadows that didn’t fit anywhere anymore, but you had to be gentler with them than with any of the others. 

Three o’clock, and the sink was almost empty, and when it was empty he could leave. He should have written, but there wasn't any time now. Unless he wrote them today and visited tomorrow…

But he’d thought that yesterday. And the day before...no, the day before he’d been training. Well, he’d  _ thought _ about training, and he’d flown for an hour and he’d almost--almost--asked Alicia if she wanted to come over. 

Alicia had screamed first, when they’d found Fred. Percy hadn’t been able to say what had happened, he pointed, said he needed help...he couldn’t do it on his own. None of them had understood until Alicia screamed and Percy’s knees had buckled, and he’d held onto Oliver like he didn’t remember what had happened before. 

Oliver had remembered better than ever.  _ Every stupid word.  _ The worst shadow of them all, living under his skin. 

Four o’clock. If he wrote a letter now...but what would he say? What if Percy told him no? What if he didn’t write anything back at all? 

Perhaps he could drop in. Tomorrow. Tomorrow at ten. And if they weren’t home, he could try again the next day. And that would be fine. That would be perfectly reasonable. A note was unnecessary, really, for a short house-call. Unless--

The knock on his flat door made Oliver jump out of his chair, wand in hand. He approached the door, opening his mouth to ask who it was, but deciding against it. The war was over. There was no need for that. Not anymore. 

Still, he held his breath as he looked through the peephole, his wand still clutched in his fist. 

It was Percy, his hand lingering in the air, half curled. Ready to knock again, when the time was right (Percy had a sense about that sort of thing). 

Oliver pulled the door open before the second knock, and Percy took a step back into the hall.

“I’m sorry if it’s a bad time…” Percy looked concerned, though Oliver had always found four o’clock to be one of the most agreeable hours of the day. You could fit almost anything in it, if you tried hard enough. He’d told Percy that, probably more than once. But Percy said things, sometimes, that didn’t mean anything in particular...especially when he was nervous. A sort of tic, Oliver supposed. 

“It’s not,” Oliver said, trying to ignore how Percy scanned him, looking more worried than ever. 

“I thought we could talk,” he said, and Oliver wanted to ask what Percy saw in him that made his breath catch at the end of his sentence. “If you wanted."

Oliver nodded, stepping out of the way so Percy could enter. But then his eye caught the darkness settling in the hallway, and he shook his head. 

“Not in here,” he said. “We should go outside.”

A thousand things were flashing through Percy’s mind--Oliver could see it in his face. But all he did was nod, a half-smile on his face: 

“It’s a nice day for that,” Percy said, as if he couldn’t sense the shadows. 

As Oliver walked down the hall without feeling the usual urge to duck his head, he wondered if it was easier to ignore them when you weren’t alone. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This story is loosely inspired by Taylor Swift's song "Afterglow."


End file.
